


when you call, I forgive and I fight

by queenofchildren



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, protective!Rosaline, very low levels of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 11:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: In which Benvolio is in trouble, and Rosaline is the one he turns to for help.





	when you call, I forgive and I fight

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, somebody prompted me to do the balcony scene but I didn't manage to do so before it aired. Instead I figured I'd just do a modern AU of Benvolio asking Rosaline for help.  
> With thanks to julibernardo, who encouraged me and made a super cute picset for this story as well!  
> Oh, and the title is a misheard line from Lorde's "Supercut", which did not stop me from thinking that it fits them very well.

When her phone rings at 4 am, Rosaline knows exactly who it is.

What she doesn't know is why she picks up anyway.

"I'm not helping you deal with our drunk cousins, Montague. I told you it's your turn this weekend."

She's about to hang up again when he says:

"I got arrested. There's a guy in the hospital and the police are saying I put him there."

She freezes with her finger already hovering over the "end call"-icon, completely stunned.

Out of her phone, tinny and far away, she hears Benvolio's voice.

"Capulet? Please don't hang up. I need you."

She puts the phone back to her ear and asks the first question that randomly pops into her head:

"Shouldn't you be calling your lawyer?"

"Why would I even _have_ a lawyer?"

"I don't know – situations like this?"

"Christ, Capulet, I know I get into a bit of trouble sometimes, but it doesn't usually require a lawyer." He laughs, shakily and without much humor, and she only notices now how hollow his voice sounds.

"Right." Rosaline is still not completely awake, let alone mentally equipped to deal with the situation. She only went to bed an hour ago after laboring over an urgent work assignment late into the night, just like she did the last three nights before. She's not sure how much help she's going to be in her current state.

"Look, I know you don't like me,” Benvolio hits the nail on the head, “but you're the only person I know who would be at home and sober on a Saturday night. My uncle would let me rot in here without a second thought, and Romeo and Mercutio won't pick up their phones." He pauses, then perhaps realises that this somewhat utilitarian list may not be the best way to sway her. "Plus, you're a good person and you have some common sense. So can you please come to the downtown precinct and help me figure out a way out of this mess?" Another little pause, a shaky breath. "You're all I have."

Rosaline sighs – but apparently, she really is a good person.

"Alright, I'm coming over." And then, because she can't resist: "Stay where you are."

"Very funny," he grumbles, but she thinks his voice sounds a little less tense.

***

 

Rosaline passes by the downtown precinct every day on her way to work, but she's only been inside a handful of times, and then only to head straight for the room where they hold the press conferences – a very different experience than being here just past 4 am on a Saturday and being confronted with the city's criminal underbelly.

The place is teeming with people in various states of undress, inebriation and unruliness, and it takes her a few moments to spot Benvolio, sitting on a bench off to the side with his hands cuffed and his face smeared with blood. When she comes closer, she can see the exhaustion and resignation in his posture, in the way he's slumped against the hard back of the bench, eyes closed and head lolling back to rest on the dirty wall behind him.

"You look terrible, Montague."

He opens his eyes, one of which is already starting to swell and turn a brilliant purplish-black.

"Happy as I am to see you, I have to say you don't look so hot yourself right now."

She ignores the jab – the man might be insufferable but he's sitting before her with a black eye, a split lip and a cut on his cheek, and Rosaline has always had a soft spot for lost puppies and other suffering creatures.

"Seriously though, did no one bother to even take a look at your face?"

"Plenty of people have taken a look at my face, Capulet. Most of them really approved…"

She doesn't stay to hear the end of his self-enamored blabbering. Carefully stepping over a puddle of vomit, Rosaline makes her way over to the reception desk, where an officer about her own age is sorting piles of paperwork.

"I'm sorry, but there's a man bleeding over here. Is there any chance someone could do something about that?"

The reception desk officer looks up, surprisingly calm considering the pandemonium that's going on around her.

"Is he aggressive?"

Rosaline shakes her head.

"Does it look like he might drop dead any second?"

Another shake of the head, this one a little more tentative - after all, she's only aware of the cuts and bruises on Benvolio's face. She can only hope he doesn't have any more serious injuries.

"Is he throwing up on important paperwork?", is the officer's third question, and now Rosaline is definitely getting irritated at her demonstrative disinterest in the well-being of the people placed in her care.

But still she shakes her head.

"Then no."

The officer turns away again, to Rosaline's incredulous anger.

"Excuse me." Rosaline tries to keep her voice level, though her patience is running out fast. "Do you at least have a first aid kit so I can look at him myself?"

For one heart-stopping moment, the receptionist glares at her so darkly Rosaline is afraid she'll get arrested next. Rosaline straightens her back and gets ready to fight with the only weapon she can think of right now.

"Didn't your department get a lot of bad press recently for dangerous neglect of a man in custody?"

The woman keeps on glaring.

"I'm just saying, it probably wouldn't be all that great, publicity-wise, if word got out that you let a man bleed to death while he was waiting to be booked."

She briefly considers flashing her press credentials, then sees something even better: today's local newspaper, the one that features Rosaline's very first front-page editorial – picture included.

She pulls it closer until the woman is staring right at Rosaline's little black-and-white portrait.

"And trust me, word _would_ get out."

Recognition flashes across the officer's face.

Then, abruptly, she turns to the cupboard beside her, takes out a red plastic box and sets it on the counter. After fishing out a pair of scissors to set them aside and checking carefully for any other potential weapons, she finally slides it over to Rosaline, then nods her head sideways to a sink let into the wall.

"There's water over there. Just bring the kit back when you're done."

"Thank you," Rosaline replies with demonstrative politeness, takes the first aid kit, and turns around – only to find Benvolio watching her with an awed expression.

She ignores him and stalks over to the sink, soaking some paper towels in water and grabbing a few fresh ones as well before she heads back to Benvolio's bench.

"Damn Capulet, that was _badass_!"

"They can't treat people like this and they know it," she replies, feeling not quite as unaffected by the praise as she's trying to sound.

"Now lean back your head and stay still."

He does as he's told, which might be the first time since she's known him.

As gently as possible, she starts dabbing at his face with the wet paper towels, but still he occasionally flinches.

“So," she eventually remembers why she's really here, "what happened?”

“There was a fight at a... club I was at. Some guy was harassing a girl at the bar, I asked him politely to stop, he took a swing at me... You know how these things start."

Rosaline has no idea why he thinks she would know anything of the sort.

"So how come you're the one sitting here?"

"Because a few other people joined in on the fun, and then some psycho decided to up the ante by smashing a bottle over the other guy's head."

His voice turns hollow again, devoid of its usual mirth.

"He went down like a sack of flour, out cold. I've never seen anything like it."

He lets out a shaky breath, visibly rattled by the memory, and Rosaline reacts on instinct: She lifts the hand not covered in watered-down blood and runs it through his hair, her fingertips tracing a gentle path from his temple down to the back of his neck. It's a gesture ingrained by years of comforting her little sister and cousin, and she doesn't even question it. Neither does Benvolio: he leans into her touch, eyes sliding shut, and just spends a few moments breathing in and out while Rosaline tries not to imagine the horror of what he was involved in somehow at that club.

Then he opens his eyes again, and there's such a storm of emotions in them that Rosaline thinks she can physically feel their intensity: surprise and confusion, relief and gratitude – and a desperate fear that makes it impossible for her _not_ to care. She draws back her hand as if it had been burned.

"I didn't do it, I swear," he pleads, and she believes him without question. "I threw a few punches, sure, but nothing that would knock someone out."

"So why do they think you did?"

"Because by the time the police arrived, everyone else had scattered. I was the only one stupid enough to stay and wait for the ambulance to get there."

"It was the honest thing to do."

"Well, now it's going to be rewarded with a manslaughter charge."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," she says, then rummages around the med kit until she finds what she's been looking for. “You're not in jail yet.”

“To be honest, I think they've forgotten about me.”

Rosaline looks around the crowded room once more. There are only a handful of officers even on staff, and they all seem currently busy dealing with the rowdier detainees. Several other people are also sitting on the long bench running along the wall, most waiting quietly the way Benvolio was when she got in, some even sleeping. She figures the overworked cops are happy about everyone who's quiet enough so they don't have to deal with them – and in any case, it's probably for the best this way.

“This will just give us more time to figure out what to do.”

And if she's right, time is exactly what they need. It's a wonder they just let her to Benvolio anyway – she'd have thought he was already sitting in a jail cell somewhere. She needs to stop playing nurse and start figuring out how to help him prove that he's innocent.

Resolutely, Rosaline smears some iodine salve on his cuts and covers the one on his cheek with a bandaid. And only now does it seem her brain has finally woken up, because she remembers that she does in fact know how to help him: When she started working at the newspaper, Rosaline got a crash course in all sorts of legal issues, including what to do if she ever got arrested, and her editor even made her save the number of a legal aid hotline into her phone.

Ten minutes later, a lawyer is on their way to the precinct for Benvolio, and Rosaline has a mission: Find witnesses.

***

 

Benvolio's directions were clear enough: head to the club where the brawl happened and find a girl called Stella who works there, knows Benvolio, and witnessed the whole thing. Easy as pie, Rosaline thought, but what he failed to mention is that the “club” is actually a _strip club_ – and Rosaline, in jeans, sneakers and an old oversized cardigan, sticks out like a sore thumb from the moment she first sets foot inside the dark, chrome-and-velvet-heavy interior.

Still, Rosaline thinks and takes a deep breath, she can do this. She has to.

As luck would have it, there's a girl who looks a lot like Benvolio's description of the important Stella sitting just a few paces over, wearing a kimono-style bathrobe and nursing a beer at the bar. The place is practically deserted, only one table even filled with customers, and the dancer currently entertaining them is clearly not giving it her all.

Rosaline tears her eyes off the dancer's gyrating motions and steers over to the pretty, curly-haired blonde sitting by the bar.

“Are you Stella, by any chance?”

The blonde woman looks her up and down - not hostile, but definitely wary.

"And you are?”

“I'm a... friend of Benvolio Montague's?”

The woman's face shows clear signs of recognition, which Rosaline takes as proof that she is indeed the person she came to talk to.

“He needs you,” she blurts out, already back on mission now that she's found her witness. Stella still looks wary, but Rosaline is quickly becoming acclimatised to the place. Climbing on the barstool next to the other woman, she explains. “That fight he was involved in earlier? Someone got seriously hurt, and the police are saying he did it.”

"They're _still_ holding him? I thought they were just going to question him as a witness!"

"Well, now it seems they consider him a suspect. So he really needs someone who saw the whole thing and will testify that it wasn't him who smashed that bottle over the other guy's head."

Stella nods in understanding, and Rosaline feels tentatively hopeful.

"Did you see it?"

"Yes, I saw the fight. Benvolio definitely didn't start it though – some guy was harrassing one of the girls, our bouncer was busy kicking out a few gropey guests, so Ben stepped in and told him to back off."

“I take it the other guy wasn't too happy about that.”

“He wasn't. Ben tried to talk him down, but he wouldn't listen – and then suddenly he was lunging at him and Ben had no choice but to defend himself.”

“Did he defend himself with a bottle?” Rosaline asks, surprising herself with how much she hopes the answer will be no.

Stella shakes her head. “I didn't see who smashed that bottle over the guy's head, but it wasn't Ben.”

Rosaline sags a little in relief.

"Maybe that will be enough. Can you come to the precinct with me right now?"

The change in Stella's expression and body language is as immediate as it is worrisome: She draws back where she was leaning forward just a moment ago, her expression closing off.

"I can't, I'm sorry."

"What? Why?"

"Because...” she laughs nervously, “this is awkward, but Benvolio and I have been having a bit of a ....thing, and my boss can't know about it. 'Don't sleep with the guests' is practically our rule number one."

"He might be charged with manslaughter. Your boss won't make an exception for that?"

"Trust me, she won't. I'm sorry, but I can't afford to lose this job." She squirms on her barstool and doesn't meet Rosaline's eye, so it seems Stella at least feels bad about refusing to help – but not bad enough to change her mind.

She'll just have to find some other witness, Rosaline decides defiantly.

"What about your colleague?", she asks, nodding in the direction of the lone dancer, whose movements are getting faster and more suggestive – hopefully because she's about to wrap up her number.

Stella's face brightens.

"Nencia? Oh, she was here earlier. I don't know how much she saw, but I can ask her to talk to you. Her shift ends soon anyway."

And in a stroke of luck, when the woman comes over not five minutes later and they ask her about the incident, the dancer confirms that she did indeed see the whole thing – and remembers the same key points as Stella.

"Yeah, Benvolio was involved in that. But he wasn't the one who threw the first punch, and he definitely didn't have a bottle."

"Would you be willing to tell that to the police?"

Nencia shrugs. "Sure. My shift's over anyway."

Waiting for the woman to get changed and ready to leave may be the most awkward ten minutes of Rosaline's life. She's sitting at the bar, sipping a coke the barkeeper offered her while commenting that "we all _adore_ Benvolio, I really hope you can get him out of this", and trying not to be too obviously rude to Stella for bailing on him.

Rosaline tries not to be judgemental, but she can't help but feel that the other woman is being a little heartless. Of course, Rosaline doesn't know _exactly_ what the woman's "thing" with Benvolio entails. But judging by his complete faith when he told Rosaline to ask Stella for help, they're more than just fuck buddies.

But none of that matters, she reminds herself, because she has her witness, and that's all she needs. Benvolio's love life - which she already knows more about now than she ever intended to - is not what she should be concerned with; his freedom is.

Luckily, Stella's dancer colleague reappears soon, and Rosaline can leave without making further small-talk.

"Tell him good luck from me, okay?", Stella asks, sounding genuinely pained, and Rosaline nods before she has decided if she wants to do any such thing.

Then she follows Nencia out of the club and heads straight to her car, thoughts already racing ahead to the precinct. By now, the promised lawyer should be there, which means at least one person who knows what they're doing. But what if it's already too late to present the witness? What if Benvolio's been charged already, and they'll have to wait for a trial to set things right? What if...

The other woman's voice cuts into her thoughts.

"It's really sweet that you're doing this for your boyfriend."

For a moment, Rosaline is genuinely confused – God knows it's been a while since she called anyone her boyfriend.

"My... _Benvolio_?!” Rosaline almost misses a right turn in her shock, then takes the curve a little too fast and swerves into the – thankfully empty – opposite lane. “ _God no_ , he's not my _boyfriend_!" Nencia nods, but out of the corner of her eye Rosaline sees her looking markedly confused. "He's just... a friend of a friend."

"Really? Then you're a pretty good _friend of a friend_ , driving around at night trying to help him."

Rosaline doesn't reply, though she notices the hint of scepticism in the other woman's voice. But really, wouldn't anyone do the same in her position?

Of course they would, Rosaline decides as she pulls into a parking space outside the precinct. At least if they had a heart.

And that conviction only gets stronger when they enter the precinct to find Benvolio still sitting in the same spot she left him, appearing even more pale and drawn than he did before and nervously fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. Then he looks up, spots them – and suddenly, he's looking at Rosaline as if she single-handedly saved the world.

Yes, Rosaline thinks to herself, _anyone_ would help him.

She's about to ask for a status report when she hears a familiar voice.

"...and then of course there's the small issue of denying him medical attention. So I suggest you either book and charge my client now, or you take his witness statement and let him go."

It's a voice that means good news for Benvolio – but a very awkward encounter for her. Because Rosaline knows the lawyer sent by the legal aid people is as fierce as she is excellent – she just also happens to be her ex-boyfriend's sister.

The woman in question joins them now, sharply dressed with her hair pinned up in an immaculate know even at this ungodly hour.

"So it really is true," Isabella says with an amused twinkle in her eyes, then leans forward to give Rosaline a quick hug."When they told me someone by the name of Rosaline Capulet had requested legal aid, I simply couldn't believe it." She looks from her to Benvolio with a bemused expression. "And to be honest, it still doesn't entirely make sense."

"Apparently, I'm the designated sober friend tonight," Rosaline explains wrily, but finds the joke undermined by Benvolio's completely serious affirmative nod beside her. “But what are _you_ doing here?”

“My brother is making everyone at the firm do pro bono work. Give back to the community, and all that.”

Rosaline waits for the usual stab of sadness that comes with the mention of Escalus' – but to her surprise, it doesn't happen. Perhaps her mind is too preoccupied with other things at the moment, perhaps over the months since she and Escalus broke up, she somehow got over him. Whatever the reason, right now, Rosaline is only happy to see her friend, relieved to have someone so confident and capable on her side – and more than a little amused when Isabella turns to Benvolio, looks him up and down, and says:

“Of course, the “pro bono”-part does not apply to poor little rich boys. You'll get my invoice by the end of the week.”

Benvolio nods eagerly.

“Whatever it takes, just get me out of here.”

“Oh, I will.” Isabella turns to the dancer standing next to Rosaline. “I assume you're our witness?”

Nencia nods, then seems unsure if she's supposed to say anything else – but Isabella seems satisfied already. She lays a hand on the woman's back and starts gently guiding her towards the officer she was talking to earlier.

“Then this is your time to shine.”

With that they're off, and Rosaline sinks down on the bench behind her. She has a 60-hour work week and an assignment over the weekend behind her, and now, she's definitely starting to feel it. For a moment, she stretches out her legs, leans back her head, and just breathes out the tension of the last few hours – and then somehow, her head is suddenly so heavy that she can't lift it again, and she simply stays in place.

Benvolio sinks down on the bench beside her, and though she's staring emptily ahead through half-closed eyes, Rosaline can feel his gaze on her.

“You know, you can just leave now Capulet. This could take a while, and I'm sure my lawyer will handle everything.”

“I know she will. But I don't trust _you_ not to fuck up again. So before I go home and finally crawl back into bed only for you to call and wake me up again, I'd rather just stay here and see this through.”

"Oh. Alright." He sounds surprised, which is nice because she doesn't usually manage to rattle him. 

"So where's Stella? Was she gone already?"

Rosaline freezes. What is she supposed to say to that? The easy thing to do would be to just say yes, or claim that Stella hadn't seen anything helpful. But wouldn't it be kinder in the long run to let him know what really happened?

"She didn't want to make a statement." She turns her head to look at him, watches his throat bob as he swallows hard. "She was afraid she'd lose her job if it came out that the two of you were..." she trails off, not knowing how to end the sentence.

"Right. I should have thought of that."

He's obviously trying to look like the news doesn't bother him, but Rosaline doesn't find it very convincing.

"I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "At least now I know where I stand, right?"

"Is that why you were there in the first place?"

He nods. "Romeo took off with Juliet hours ago, Mercutio met a cute guy at the bar, and I didn't feel like going home alone." He flashes a self-deprecating grin. "Should have just sucked it up and turned in early, I guess."

Rosaline doesn't know what to say, so she just shrugs It seems enough for him to consider the subject adequately treated though, because he leans back against the wall, mirroring her posture, and falls silent as well.

The sudden silence leaves room for thinking - and Rosaline, it turns out, has plenty of thinking to do, beginning with the question of why the hell she's even here.

Nencia hadn't believed her when she claimed Benvolio was just a friend of a friend. But before tonight, she would have insisted that that's exactly what he is, and nothing more – no one at all to her, really.

The only thing she and Benvolio have in common is the fact that they both care about their friends' and cousins' well-being more than is perhaps healthy for their own sanity, and more often than not, the two of them seem to be the only two people still standing at the end of the night.

It's how she first met him, actually: just a few weeks after Rosaline's cousin Juliet started dating his cousin Romeo, Benvolio showed up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, holding up a swaying, completely shit-faced Juliet, and practically shoving her at Rosaline. “This one's your responsibility now,” he declared and walked away again without so much as an introduction. Rosaline yelled a few choice words about his lack of manners or maturity, before she was cut off by Juliet throwing up right on her doormat, effectively making sure Rosaline would never associate anything positive with the name Benvolio Montague ever again.

Since that fateful night, their interactions have known only two modes: sniping at each other, and grudgingly teaming up to take care of their drunk friends. And she has to admit, he's not the _worst_ ally one could have in such situations. He was surprisingly helpful when Juliet “accidentally” took some mushrooms and had a bad trip, or when she and Romeo decided to elope during what was supposed to be a peaceful Saturday morning brunch and dragged them all to City Hall, or that time Romeo got catfished and almost sent some stranger on the internet most of his savings. Granted, that last one predates their acquaintance, but according to the legendary tale retold often and with verve by their friend Mercutio, Benvolio's efforts to save his cousin were downright heroic.

So she knows, on some level, that he's not _all bad._ But ever since their unpleasant first meeting, Rosaline has made it a habit to notice only the annoying things he does, and never the ones others might qualify as somewhat decent. And since she usually only meets him at parties and nights out, she sort of came away with the impression that partying is all he ever does – which obviously can't be true because according to Romeo he not only holds down a regular graphic design job but also does photography gigs on the side.

Plus, it only occurs to her now as she studies him, looking even more exhausted and dishevelled than he did the night they first met: It may have been a little annoying that he decided to just dump her vomit-spewing little cousin on her doorstep in the middle of the night – but at least he brought her to Rosaline's place, instead of leaving her alone and incapacitated somewhere.

That alone has to count for something, she guesses.

That this night began with a phone call from the police station and ended with her questioning her entire worldview – or at least one of its central tenets, namely that Benvolio Montague is the actual worst – that is something she has yet to wrap her head around.

And apparently, her body decides, the question of what she thinks of Bencolio Montague is a puzzle for another day: she falls asleep before Isabella and Nencia have even returned.

By the time she wakes up again, the sun is shining, and Benvolio is gently shaking her by the shoulder.

"Come on, Capulet. Let's get you into a bed." He pauses, shakes his head. "Never thought I'd say _that_." He holds out a hand to help her up, and in her sleep-deprived daze Rosaline takes it, pulling herself up and then swaying into him, to her mortification.

"I was going to buy you breakfast, as a thank you, but I'm afraid you'd fall asleep and pitch over onto the plate."

"You can buy me breakfast some other time," Rosaline mumbles, still decidedly not caught up with everything. "Where's Isabella? And Nencia?"

"Isabella wrapped up all the legal stuff and left. And I gave Nencia money for a taxi, so she's gone too. The only one still lazing about here is you, sleepyhead."

Well, he certainly went back quickly from “ _I need you”_ to being an annoying little cockroach again, Rosaline thinks vaguely, and then startles when he laughs and she realizes that she just voiced that thought out loud.

“ _Annoying little cockroack_? You wound me, Capulet.”

“Shut up, or I'm not giving you a ride home.”

He listens for once, following her out to her car in surprisingly well-behaved silence. Still, despite his apparent relief, she notices that his shoulders only lower from their defensively raised position when they walk out the door of the precinct, tension easing out of him as they leave this terrifying night behind them.

Of course, the silence doesn't last long. Rosaline has barely pulled out of the parking lot before he's talking again – but this time there's no teasing in his voice, only complete sincerity.

"I'm sorry for giving you such a hard time before. I just always thought that, of all of us, you have your life together the most. I guess I figured you could take it."

Rosaline can't help but laugh out loud.

"I have ramen noodles for dinner three times a week, my sleep schedule is a mess, and my fridge hasn't held more than condiments since I bought it. I'd say the impression is misleading."

He laughs softly, an unfamiliar sound but one Rosaline finds oddly pleasing.

“In that case, I guess I should buy you a proper dinner as a thank you instead of just breakfast.”

“Feel free to buy me all the food you want,” Rosaline answers, too distracted by another driver's shitty manoeuvers to think about what she's agreeing to.

“Dinner it is then,” Benvolio replies determinedly, and Rosaline wonders what the hell she just got herself into. But Benvolio doesn't seem to be done with the topic: “I mean it, though, about being grateful. You really came through for me tonight when you didn't have to. I sure as hell never gave you any reason to care about me."

Feeling her cheeks heat up, Rosaline determinedly keeps her eyes on the road. It's only polite of him to thank her, of course, but he's just being so goddamn _earnest_ about it.

"You're annoying, but you don't deserve to go to _prison_."

"Aww, so you _do_ care."

She tries not to smile.

"Don't let it get to your head. I only need you to help me wrangle our terrible little cousins."

"You keep telling yourself that, Capulet," he says smugly, but for once Rosaline doesn't feel the overwhelming urge to smack him.

“You know, I'm beginning to really regret not taking a picture of you hand-cuffed at the station. For leverage and public shaming and such.”

“We both know I have no shame,” he counters cheerfully, and Rosaline rolls her eyes, though he's probably right.

Still, his apparently much-improved mood makes her feel okay about dropping him off at his apartment just a short while later and heading off to her own place to finally, _finally_ get back to bed.

***

 

She gets her thank-you-dinner the next weekend, and a repeat the weekend after that because Benvolio claims that his friends have abandoned him for their significant others and that apparently means his only choices for entertainment are hanging out with her or going out alone and getting into trouble again. It's blackmail, really, but Rosaline's fridge is completely empty, so she would have had to get take-out anyway.

When she tells him about the empty fridge and another week of ramen noodle dinners, the next day finds him standing outside her door with two bags of groceries and demanding to be let in. He sets up shop in her kitchen with the greatest ease to cook for them, and then returns to do the same thing the next week, and the one after that, and then every time Rosaline mentions having a lot of work and being too tired to cook for herself. The rest of those evenings are spent talking or watching a movie or taking a walk around the block, and somehow they slide into regularly hanging out without Rosaline even noticing that that is apparently what they're doing.

By the time she wonders what _exactly_ it is they're doing, Benvolio has become such a part of her life that she finds she misses him during weeks where they're both too busy to hang out, and begins to look forward to his visits as the highlight of her week. She's made it a habit to blurt out her latest news the second he arrives, and attentively listening to his. She even attended the opening for his photography exhibition, and could not have felt more proud if she had made those brilliant photos herself.

Even the way she says hello and goodbye to him changes: from a curt nod and a tense “Montague“ to hugs that last a little longer every time. And then one night, she realizes that she doesn't actually want to let go, and finds Benvolio looking equally regretful when she pulls away and closes the door after him. It rattles her so much that she spends the next hour mentally revisiting every one of their interactions, looking for clues that they're something other than what she thought they were – or that they _could_ be something other.

Eventually, mind spinning because she's never been good at this kind of stuff, Rosaline swallows her pride and just asks him by text.

_"question: are we just hanging out or is this your attempt at dating?"_

She waits with baited breath for his reply.

_"you know Capulet, for someone who's working on their first Pulitzer you can be amazingly daft."_

_Of course_ he wouldn't be helpful about this, Rosaline thinks irritatedly, but her heart is racing and her stomach fluttering as she waits for him to explain – and all of that over _Benvolio Montague_.

_"we can be dating if you want us to be."_

Rosaline hesitates for only a moment, her mind travelling back to their first meeting, to those months of antagonism following it - wasted months, she can't help but think now.

“ _I can't believe I'm doing this”_ , she types eventually, " _but yes – I want us to be dating.”_

And really, that's all there is to say.

 

 


End file.
